MONDAY MOTIVATION: 3 ways to get out of a rut

The beginning of a new week commences and you promise yourself that it’ll be much more productive than the previous one. Hours later, you’re already feeling lazy and exhausted with not much work executed. “I’ll do it tomorrow”, you try to convince yourself as a guilty conscience creeps up on you for not putting in work. Only to repeat the same pattern again the next day. I don’t know how many of you can relate to this scenario but this has been the story of my life for the past few weeks…
Feeling unmotivated happens to the best of us and it takes its toll in so many ways. This morning when I was preparing to start my day, I kept thinking about the amount of work I needed to cover this week and the light I had woken up with immediately stopped shining. I almost fell back into the unmotivated slump I had been in and that’s when I realised; the only way in which you can get this monkey off your back is by waking up with a positive attitude. Though that’s just the piece of the puzzle! Today I’ll be sharing with you 3 tricks that I use to get me going. These are the tricks that have worked for me in the past and they have made a major difference in my productivity. Let’s first get into waking up with a positive attitude…

1. WAKING UP WITH A POSITVE ATTITUDE
For me a positive attitude is equivalent to a positive mindset. I mean think about this. You can use drinking caffeine in the morning and inspirational talks as a stepping stone to get you going. Though when that caffeine runs out and the inspirational quotes lose their charm, what do you have as your source of inspiration? The answer is the man in the mirror. Yes, You! When you wake up in the morning with a positive attitude you make a conscience decision that even if a minor setback gets in your way, you will not allow it to ruin your day. This not only helps you see the good in every negative challenge that you come across but it drives you to want to complete the tasks you don’t necessarily find exciting.

2. WEEKLY TO DO LIST

I’m a very visual person. So the only way I’m able to internalize something is if I paint a picture of it in my mind. I’m sure most of you have heard about a vision board. You know that board that people use to display images that usually represent their life goals and inspirations? Well instead of a vision board I make use of a ‘motivation wall’. It’s similar to a vision board only difference is that it’s a wall I use to display all the work that I need to complete before the month ends and inspirational quotes that help to keep me going. How I go about creating it is by making a list of all the work that I need to complete before the month ends. I then break them down into weekly tasks so they’re easier for me to tackle and take note of them using sticky notes which I paste up on my wall. This forces me to get up off my behind and put in work whenever I notice that the week is about to come to an end and one task hasn’t been completed. And man does it feel good every time I tick a task off that list…

3. COMMIT

The biggest source of motivation comes from inspiration, but the most important source comes from commitment. When you commit to something, be it a relationship, a job or cause. You dedicate your time and effort to ensure that it’s a success. You go the extra mile if needs be. So if you haven’t committed yourself to the main cause of action (school, career, etc) then it makes the little tasks that need to be completed seem like dreadful chores. Therefore commit! Learn to love what you do, that way you will feel the urge of putting in the work.

I hope these tips are exactly what you needed to help you get out of your ‘unmotivated’ rut and help you kickstart the rest of your week. If you have any tips of your own you would like to share then please, do share!